all the writing lost. Says, read the story again.

But which one? That which diverts the mind

is poetry. Says, you know those planes

that hit those buildings? Asks, why do birds sing?

When the storm ends, she stops, holds her hands

together, closes her eyes. What are you doing?

I’m praying for the dead worms. Says, listen:

IV. second recitative

Breathing Together

Breathing Together

Bear with me. I want to explain why it took so long, the strange and hard ways this mss. hit me. Weeks ago, a close friend who worked for the State Department killed himself, apparently leaping from the Taft Bridge. It was shocking, but also unbelievable—truly, we did not believe it at first. P— was in no way suicidal. He and I had had a conversation where he scoffed at those who ended their lives. He’d seen a lot of godawful things, had interviewed hundreds of Holocaust survivors, and felt it was his duty to bear witness. No obit was released for a long time, the family wasn’t talking, and no police reports of a suicide on that day. I tracked down that the news came through a woman who had been staying with P—. It sounds like a conspiracy movie, but on the day of his death, two federal officers came to the apartment at 6 am and interviewed him privately for an hour. She was asked to leave. When she returned, the officers confiscated P—’s home computer. They made plans for dinner, and he left for work—the last anyone saw him. P— had been interviewing people in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers and detainees. He was a research phenom, intensely moral—self-righteously so. Perhaps he stumbled onto information he shouldn’t have and was considering releasing it….We’re all being cautious about how we talk about this. You don’t have to say anything back about it, but I wanted you to know a little of the story.

Testimony (after Daniel Heyman)

When I Was a Child, I Lived as a Child, I Said to My Dad

When I Was a Child, I Lived as a Child, I Said to My Dad

Saint Paul was a jackass, my father muttered,

keystroking his tank into position in The Mother

of All Tank Battles. I turned back to the screen,

maneuvering pixilated tanks. Each arrow key

altered trajectory, each cursor tap a tank blast. Fast-

forward two decades: in a cubicle outside Vegas,

Jonah joysticks his Predator above Afghanistan,

drone jockey hovering above a house on computer screen.

He knows someone’s inside. Is it his target? Who else

inside—cooking, crawling—will not outrun his digital will?

He is cross hairs and shaking frame. Stone implosion.

He watches the collapse replay on-screen, then

heads home. Pizza. Diaper rash. Removes a thumb

from his toddler’s sleeping mouth. Again, no sleep.… Our game’s

quaintly obsolete. On mailboxes around our neighborhood,